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Statement on Cultural Appropriation – Updated 2019

The Montreal Anarchist Bookfair collective opposes all systems of domination and hierarchy, which necessarily includes white supremacy.

We work to make the bookfair as accessible as possible, and recognize that failing to adequately address instances of white supremacy is an issue of access. Over the years, one manifestation of white supremacy in particular—cultural appropriation—has meant that many people who feel the brunt of racialized oppression have felt unwelcome at the bookfair. We’re striving to change this as best we can, and part of this means trying to figure out better ways to concretely address cultural appropriation as it plays out at the bookfair.

One of the most common ways in which this occurs is through aesthetic choices such as non-Black people wearing “dreadlocks” and people non-Indigenous to Turtle Island wearing “Mohawk” hairstyles. While these are by no means the only ways in which cultural appropriation rears its head, we give these examples as they are things that have specifically and repeatedly been brought to the Bookfair collective’s attention over the years.

We’re not interested in policing people’s bodies, nor is it logistically feasible—or desirable—for us to monitor every person who attends the bookfair. As the collective is responsible for choosing the bookfair’s content, however, this year we’re trying to be more thoughtful in terms of who presents and tables. To the best of our capacity, we will not be accepting applications from people wanting to present or table if we know them to be making culturally appropriative choices in how they dress or behave.

The Montreal Anarchist Bookfair is more than just the collective; it’s on everyone who attends to think critically about how the choices they make (aesthetic and otherwise) might reflect systems of domination and hierarchy, and how that impacts others’ ability to attend. We ask you to think seriously before deciding to show up dressed or behaving in ways that are culturally appropriative. If it’s more important to you to wear your hair or dress any way you want, even if you know that might be a misrepresentation of someone else’s culture, maybe you should stay home.

Beyond trying to address instances of cultural appropriation as and where we can, the collective is also working to maintain the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair as a space that is more accessible to racialized people in the content we prioritize. This includes specifically giving more space to ABIPOC (Anarchist Black, Indigenous and People of Color), and specifically anticolonial and indigenizing content.

As always, the bookfair believes that popular education is an essential part of confronting and dismantling systems of control. If you want to learn more about cultural appropriation, or you’re not sure what we’re talking about here, check out the resources below or ask your local librarian!

I doubt they read them because "Cultural appropriation or cultural appreciation" and "Are dreadlocks cultural appropriation?" don't really support their stance. They essentially say that its important to acknowledge the context of these hair styles, but specifically do not endorse disallowing them for white people.

Which makes sense, because liberal anarchists tend not to understand nuance very well.

Is being queer while you're a privileged rich kid also cultural appropriation? Apparently it's all up to this committee members to decide! Viva la anarcho-bucreaucracy and its own petty bourgeois kids!

Some White commie despots have been gatekeeping relations between the left-leaning Mohawks and the Montreal scene. There are activist hierarchies both within the Mohawk and among the settler Leftist milieu, and nobody apparently dared talking openly about it, but it's been like that for well over a decade. So efficiently enforced, beyond question, that one might ask if this policing ain't nothing else than just, well, the police.

Moreover, the mohawk haircut is historically diachronic as the dreadlock rasta. Not only it's rare among actual Mohawk people, but there's also the fact that not only Mohawk people wore it, but a few old other cultures too.

"The hairstyle has been in existence in many parts of the world for millennia. For instance, the Clonycavan Man, a 2000-year-old male bog body discovered near Dublin in 2003, was found to be wearing a mohawk styled with plant oil and pine resin.[4] Artwork discovered at the Pazyryk burials dating back to 600 BCE depicts Scythian warriors sporting similar mohawks. The body of a warrior occupying one of the kurgans had been scalped earlier in life and wore a hair prosthesis in the form of a mohawk.[5] Herodotus claimed that the Macai, a northern Libyan tribe, "shave their hair so as to leave tufts, letting the middle of their hair grow long, but round this on all sides shaving it close to the skin."[6]

Among the Pawnee people, who historically lived in present-day Nebraska and in northern Kansas, a "mohawk" hair style was common.
Pawnee father and son, 1912

When going to war, 16th-century Ukrainian Cossacks would shave their heads, leaving a long central strip. This haircut was known as a oseledets or chupryna and was often braided or tied in a topknot.[7]

During World War II, many American GIs, notably paratroopers from the 101st Airborne Division wore mohawks to intimidate their enemies. In the early 1950s, some jazz musicians[10][11] and a small group of teenage girls wore them.[12]

But the organizers still apparently didn't read theory about "social context"... hence they'll be using references to some U.S. rap video or the behavior of some kids in the UK as support for their policies in a Montreal book fair. Brilliant but also not too brilliant..

Forget it... they neither won't read from Wikipedia because by now it's a propaganda machine of the Alt Right, and probably always been a right-wing plot to undermine the Revolution because reasons, n such n such.

We will be DNA swabbing at the door before allowing any suspect visitors into the Bookfair. While it is a rapid result test you may wish to use the time to self-crit on your style.
Your compliance is appreciated.
Love and solidarity.

When it comes to the radical relationships that I will strike up in the future you better believe I will control for things like IDPol linguistification intensive thought patterns. There needs to be a re-salting of the radical earth away from base structured 1968 discourse and dogma.

It means starting over and leaving behind just as 1886 was eventually left behind heading into and after ww2 which might be daunting, but being a radical frontierist of the future is fun in its own right.

If you recall the start of Bladerunner, the series of questions which distinguished cognitive mindset, or a good journalist could expose cognitive language patterns.
I myself identify undesirable entities by just observing the type of music they dance to, body language, and the ancient art of physiognomy. A very revealing method of avoiding leftist morons.,.

True... for some reason they get easily hooked on crappy generic commercial latin-american music, of which they even do a cult. Nothing wrong with the full-on sexism of these banana songs as long as it's latino, which can't be White supremacist unless you're in the latin world where many people consider themselves to be "White".... but hey nevermind that's another story!

It's a canard born of Marxist structured pocolon rubbish. Racism at it's base is prejudice as it relates to nation state constructed identities plain and simple. The power aspect is superstructural not base. There's also the fact that these pocolons use the crude modern definition of power and not a more post-modern one.

Of course black brown and yellow can be just as racist as white western types.

this reminds me of a conflict in the nineties over using swear words in our publications, for fear it would alienate people - fuck off !!!!!!! absolutely it's a constant critique of ourselves (together) - unfortunately in my experience over and over again it's manipulation by the comfort class - We are each responsible for ourselves and though i forget who said it first, a great quote - 'i'm not responsible for your feelings. you can take them to the altar.'

I agree about the Style Police, and anyone who has read my comments knows what I think of IdPol.
But I don't understand cultural appropriation itself. I'm happy with my real redneck roots and my "hippie" LSD music.

Already I know a lot about how the Original People ("wild Indians") lived and tended the ecosystem where my backwoods sanctuary will be, and am learning more all the time. This is about living there appropriately. But unless I was adopted by a Maidu tribe, it would feel ludicrous for me to go around in traditional Maidu dress singing traditional Maidu songs. I'm not Maidu, I'm a damn redneck. I'm also not going to git a genetic test and pull an Elizabeth Warren number with the small amount of Native blood I'm likely to have. What ever happened to being real?

Perhaps I lack the Correct Egoist Understanding of this Burning Issue.

Refreshing to see such honesty and disclosure about ones redneck lineage, which qualifies the egoist stance, an ontological honesty to ones real self .
Also, flannelet shirts on an athletic feline physique is a must see ;) .,.

our loose cooperatives flappily embrace our wild daggers, rewilding and reverting us away from any construct of humanity, thrusting us pelvically into the nagation of everithing, the return to the nothingness that never left us...

Stirnerians use the nuanced term " scabbard " when referring to sword equipment, which plays a major part in our quest for individual liberty and the exercise of releaving people of their property, livestock and wealth, which they are too weak to own themselves without their State shepherds.

I mean you’d think there could be a simple attempt to tell white people to check their shit without a website having a full-on meltdown about ‘leftists’ and spewing bad-faith counter-arguments....oh wait this is egoist land now, I forgot. Gab away!

the idea of telling someone to "check their shit" is not the same as "cut your hair off, even though it is yours, because my feelings hurt. my feelings > your bodily autonomy because fixed group-identity > individualized emancipation. like seriously, are you anarcho-liberals literally hurt by somebody's matted hair? really? gtfo of here.

and black face are the last vestiges of the minstrel shows of the Jim Crow era and their appropriation is a performance of white power. If you would divest from whiteness and join the human race identity politics would lose its power to harm you. Oh are you still white? Sorry to hear that.

All IdPol, White Nationalist, and YOURS, is the opposite of joining the human race. And if the IdPols win on a mass scale, lots of humans will die not very long from now.

Not long from now, I will be outdoors nearly all the time and will no longer pass for "white", thru no effort on my part (unlike those white dreads). Like when I became immune to poison oak. But NOTHING satisfies an IdPol.

about cultural appropriation on a couple of ancom groups I became a moderate on the issue and decided that egregious instances of CA should be fought vociferously e.g. the Washington Redskins logo but micro managing was not really worth it but it seems there are some people who still want to do it. It does make for a more rarified and exclusive space and its interesting that piety went down this road less traveled and avoided a lot of other red flags like boots, tattoos, piercings, dirty clothes, body odor and bad breath, drugs and dope etc. things which are also objectionable to some people. I guess its an interesting experiment in control and inclusion and accessibility but if you want to sell books you might have to let some people through the door. Mohawks aren't allowed in idpol town.

The following pronouncement is addressed to anyone who seriously wants to get rid of cultural appropriation. Stop eating the following foods immediately: Tacos Al-Pastor, all pasta dishes, and "southern food" but only if you are white. ALL CULTURE IS APPROPRIATION!!! From this day forward you may only eat that which you can find in your local field. The development of ruminating stomachs is highly encouraged.

Loving this liberated attitude from the Mtl @ organizers. As a Northern European person, it hurts me deeply when I see non-naturally blonde people dyeing their hair in order to appropriate the hair color of indigenous Northern Europeans. Of course, they are usually ignorant of the history of our oppression - after being subjugated by the Romans, blonde hair became so fashionable among Roman citizens (who exoticized we Northerners as wild, savage, and free) that enslaved Celts frequently had their heads forcibly shaved in order to meet the huge demand for blonde wigs among Romans. Now, my intergenerational trauma is compounded and nearly constantly triggered by seeing bottle blondes nearly every time I leave the house, never bind the bombardment of hair dye commercials through the mass media. I could really use just *some* relief, a safe space to decompress at the Mtl @ bookfair. I am glad to see that the organizers seem like the types who will accommodate my special needs.

i just...can't stop laughing. this is why I LOVE Anews. thank you for this jussie. and fuck idpol so hard. so so hard. i invite the organizers on here. please come debate. so we can show you what real anarchie looks like. you are so empowered by your identity politics, so powerful in all your knowledge...please come debate. so i can show you why some of us want to set your colleges on fire.

But Celts weren't generally known for their blond hair; this was the Germans and Nordics. Celts were smaller with often darker hair as they were known to be originating from a mix of three older ethnic groups, at least one purportedly from India.

One way to recognize a racist troll: their ignorance of history, that is rooted on twisted, oversimplified views of their racial ancestors.

Caesar was not even there, he never even fought, he was not an anthropologist, he was a politician with an elaborate public relations department, and exagerations were part of the heroic statesman script.

Canadian “anarchism” is now basically at the level of Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, telling women they have to cover their hair because it's their own culture and the other styles are “western”; or neo-Nazis telling their supporters not to wear Levi jeans because they're “Jewish”. In other words, extreme reaction is now “progressive”.

All of this is based on a recuperation and twisting of the meaning of “oppression”.

An event is not “inaccessible” because someone “feels uncomfortable” and voluntarily stays away.

Whether someone “bears the brunt of” a particular form of oppression, does not say anything about whether their analysis of a particular act as part of the structure of oppression is right or not. Especially when one only consults a select few self-appointed representatives of the oppressed group.

This particular delusion was invented by the US Supreme Court which – instead of legislating equal rights or addressing pay inequalities – invented the idea of “hostile environment discrimination”. Meaning companies are responsible for particular groups feeling uncomfortable, even if there's no intent to discriminate.

This doesn't do much harm so long as it's applied to companies. But it does ENORMOUS harm when it's applied to anarchist spaces where – by definition – there's nobody to legislate what the “environment” is like. It makes EVERY anarchist environment “discriminatory” by definition. And it imposes a choice: be anarchist, or be “anti-oppressive”.

It replaces an anarchist view of oppression and authority, with a cybernetic totalitarian view in which the FAILURE to exercise authority so as to optimise comfort for a given group is “oppression”.

And this is before we even consider, the PREDICTABLE consequence that bigots will start using the same laws and policies to claim that “environments” have been made “hostile”... TO THEM.

We need to shout loud and clear that THIS IS NOT AN ANARCHIST VIEW OF OPPRESSION.

The idea of “appropriation” embeds the neoliberal belief that culture is a commodity which can be “owned” by particular people and should not be hacked or hybridised by others. It treats culture as “cultural capital” which can be diluted or captured, when in fact culture is open-ended, always created through exchanges with other cultures, and infinitely replicable without destroying or stealing the original (as is all information). “Cultural appropriation” was invented as a side-effect of intellectual property – which anarchists always OPPOSED. Before the 2000s, “appropriation” was barely an issue. Mainly-white subcultures adopting aspects of non-white dress or language were seen as PROGRESSIVE challenges to hegemony (e.g. in Hall and Jefferson's “Resistance through Rituals”, 1976, and Hebdige, “Subcultures: The Meaning of Style”, 1987). Appropriation was only discussed in cases of CORPORATE capture or recuperation of styles.

“In fact, the child who tears it to pieces or plays with it, the Inca Atahualpa who lays his ear to it and throws it away contemptuously when it remains dumb, judges just as correctly about the Bible as the priest who praises in it the “Word of God,” or the critic who calls it a job of men’s hands. For how we toss things about is the affair of our option, our free will: we use them according to our heart’s pleasure, or, more clearly, we use them just as we can” (Stirner).

Yes, freedom of expression is more important than “representation”. Because fuck representation.

Oppression is NOT “feeling uncomfortable because someone else is dressed a way you don't like”. Oppression is telling people what to do. Including how they can dress. End of story.

And since I'm attracted to other guys, I will be Monsterously Traumatized by any hot guy at that book fair who doesn't want to sleep with me. And I will SUE the organizers of the bookfair for Homophobic Discrimination!

hmm, a 5, i guess then it’s one of those glass half full/empty scenarios...what would you say could bump up to, or keeping it from, a six? i wouldn’t know how to rate my day yet as its just begun for me, so far so good!

someone flirting with me would get me to a 6 or 6.5. i will put on some music shortly, take my medicine, and dance my ass off for a few moments - that will take me to a 9, unless my knees give out. care to join me?

it always gets me moving, un poco de salsa. they played on a "disco" boat ride back in the summer of 75 (the day line boats) and i had my first real psychedelic experience there. myself, my boy on percussion (congas and timbales), and the dudes on keyboards and sax, we tripped out crazy that night. under the stars on the hudson river, one of the most prominent memories of my life. and one of the primary reasons music - particularly funky baselines - has forever since been a huge part of me.

then i go to one of my own mixes, mostly funky dance music from the 70s (some would no doubt qualify as disco, but not that orchestrated saturday nigh fever crap). happy to send you a playlist if you like that music.

yes, i'm sure i show my age. even more if you could see me dance now. :-)

wow, that's a really funky and nice groove! i have no idea how to dance that, i'll do my best, at least i have the comfort of knowing no one's looking. i haven't yet gotten into disco, but it's not too late to start

Yo, I stopped fishing and also walking in the forest when I found out that Native people were already been doing this for thousands of years. This was appropriative colonialist Whit supremacy! Therefore I bought a car and focused my life to scenester-consumerism in big cities, which is the only ethically anti-colonial lifestyle I can get.

yet campfires are not as old as the darkness upon which they dissipate light and minute pillars of smoke, they are not as old as the vast engulfing dark void upon which we nihilist savages wildly thrust upon, with our daggers draw...even our daggers and our wild thrusts predate the artifice of campfires....

"What is this... a volcano? NO! You civilized idiot... this is the entrance of the place we all "home". SMELL these fumes, these are the WILD perfumes of our realm!!! FEEL this natural, UNHINGED warmth! Now get down there before I lose patience, and I will step after you. Promise."

The wild savages were once almost totally eradicated by the homo civilisis after the latter found a cheap way to trick them to their doom. They dug deep holes into the ground in some forest, then the wild nihilist savages couldn't resist engulfing themselves into the dark void of the holes... closer to the heart of Mother Earth and their Ancestors. They really went plunging by the hundreds like crazy when the news spread about these holes! Then the homo civilisis were finally able to build their Big Union. Then everything got very lame for a while...

We make a quick comment and then leave this topic in disgust, we are too good to even stoop to wasting anymore words and time on these neurotic idpol obsessions. We nihilists only become angry and frustrated at the pettiness of the cultural identity ideologues.

yes, this 92 comments, and counting, are mere fragments of a crumble of our precious eternal moments, which are always libidinally (dis)charged...these comments are mere droplets...mere evaporation of a droplet of our inevitable perspiration as we thrust onward through the vast nothingness...we can only but let out a dark giggle, as we defend our mohawks and dreads with armed glee.....

No, we nihilists are no fashionistas or hipsters, we dress drably, and our dreads are not d3signed artifices, but arise from unkempt behavior and riding at high speed without helmets. We have no mannerisms Or customs!.,.

Hey, don't tell me I haven't been warning you about this gang for years! Take my comments out from the memory hole and I was already talking about this shit a few years back. These people are liberal shitlords who've been having professional academic "anarchists" as lecturers and a bunch of (pretend) commies and other socialists stealing the show. But then again... what show? For what audience? Yuppies who're also fans of State media?

But that ain't talking about how the whole thing's just the usual shopping mall you get in many other @ book fairs elsewhere on this continent. I heard even the one in Santiago was the same crap. In other news, MOST countries/regions known for their thriving anarchist networks and activity (except Chile, I guess!) still didn't had their book fair.... jsyk. Infoshops, social centers, local @ radios and distros, yeah, but no goddamn book fairs.

lol so, hairstyles are property of certain groups and culture is as well? Imagine if whitey was cwying cultural appropriation over people straightening their hair. These white savior type of anarcho-liberalists are delusional, but also lolcows

IdPol dystopia: Most of the U.S. is ruled by various heavily armed prison gangs - Aryan Brotherhood, Black Guerrilla Family, ect., who conduct ethnic cleansing or outright genocide in the turfs they control. Millions, tens of millions will be maimed and killed.

When $$-printing and negative real interest rates no longer contain coming financial crises, Great Depression 2.0 will arrive. Easily compounded by State/State-funded cyberwar and increasingly sophisticated/well-funded cybercrime. Capitalism will be so discredited that the only way the wealthy can hang on to power is by formenting race war, which is SO easy to do. Our dear IdPol friends will be very well funded. The question here will be: How many people will bite the bait?

Wait 'til I come up with a full Stirnerian GANGICIDE to fuck up these reactionary clans but internally and externally, by targeted assassinations, arsons, intimidation... while playing with the identity politics bullshit to blackmail opposing factions. We've been entering the perfect setting for such a factional civil war, and all the good reasons are there to throw oil in the fire of the frictions between these gangs.